Chief Operating Officer
Naomi Baer is the chief operating officer at Activate, focused on building and refining the business operations critical to scaling Activate. Before joining Activate, Baer designed and led programs for social entrepreneurs as the practitioner-in-residence at the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She also served as chief operating officer and vice president of programs at Net Impact, a non-profit helping individuals leverage business skills for social impact. Additionally, she went from early employee to executive team member at Kiva, an international financial inclusion non-profit that grew substantially during her seven-year tenure. Baer is a certified Portuguese-to-English translator and holds an executive degree from Stanford and a B.A. from Brown University.
Interim Chief Executive Officer
Cyrus Wadia, Activate’s CEO, holds a master's degree and Ph.D. in energy and resources from UC Berkeley and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from MIT. Prior to joining Activate, Cyrus was the director of worldwide product sustainability at Amazon, where he launched the company’s first sustainable shopping program, and previously vice president of sustainable business & innovation at Nike. Cyrus served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Barack Obama as assistant director of clean energy and materials R&D, responsible for a $1B initiative defining the cutting edge in materials science and innovation. He has also served as co-director and faculty member of the Haas School of Business Cleantech to Market program, senior advisor on energy and manufacturing for McKinsey & Company, and project manager at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Chief Growth Officer
Karin Lion is Activate’s chief growth officer, responsible for developing the expansion strategy to support 100 new Activate Fellows annually by 2026. An expert in scaling impact across multiple sectors, Lion was previously VP of strategy for global agtech non-profit Digital Green, where she doubled the annual budget from $7M to $14M. Prior to that, Lion managed a portfolio of philanthropic investments totaling $150M at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Lion has an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, an M.A. in international policy studies from The George Washington University, and a B.A. in history and government from William & Mary.
President & Chief Financial Officer
Matt Price is the president and chief financial officer at Activate. Price has deep experience with business development and venture investing in clean energy technologies, including expertise in renewable energy, materials science, research and development, and venture capital. He was previously managing director of Cyclotron Road, VP of channel development at Enlighted, and a principal at Nth Power, among other roles at clean energy startups. He is a graduate of the Kauffman Fellowship. He holds an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley and a B.S. in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University.
Executive Managing Director
Aimee Rose is executive managing director of Activate, where she oversees and supports the managing directors at each of Activate’s four fellow communities. An experienced science-to-product technology leader, Rose was previously founding chief technology officer at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America. Before that, she spent 11 years with an explosive detection startup launched from her doctoral research, eventually acquired by FLIR Systems (now Teledyne Flir). Rose obtained four patents and received several honors related to this work, including the U.S. Army’s Greatest Invention Award, TR35 Young Innovator Award, and Humanitarian of the Year from MIT Technology Review. Rose holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT and a B.S. in chemistry from Saint Michael's College.
Chief Fellowship Officer
Brenna Teigler is chief fellowship officer at Activate, where she oversees the fellowship experience and programming. Prior to Activate, Teigler managed program operations at Cyclotron Road. She was also a Science and Technology Policy Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, gaining valuable experience with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Technology to Market program. Teigler was named “Energy Rock Star 2017” by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, and she holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and a B.S. in professional physics from Rutgers University.